And as he called his people to fulfill her wish, she threaded her aching fingers through his silky hair, and wondered.
Did he mean everything he said to her the way it sounded? Did he really feel this way about her? The way she felt about him? Did she even want him to feel that way?
No. She didn’t. She wanted to have this with him, let them enjoy each other as much as they wanted, as much as they could and nothing else. For six long—and way too short—months.
Twelve
“Can you believe six months have passed so fast?”
Jala felt the smile beginning to sink its claws into her flesh as she handed Sette to Ala’a, Kamal and Aliyah’s five-year-old son. It gave her something to do so she wouldn’t answer Aliyah’s exclamation.
For what could she say? That there was nothing else she’d thought about every minute of these six months. That the days were passing so horribly fast? And now that the six months were up, she felt as if her very life was, too?
Aliyah threw herself beside Jala on the couch, grinning at her son’s retreating back as he rushed to his sister in the other room with the last piece in his treasure, the tolerant Sette, having now collected all four cats.
“I thought once I got the kids four cats, too, they’d stop demanding to visit you to see yours every week, but no...your foursome are their first loves.”
“One more thing to thank the cats for, then, making me see you all much more frequently than I would have without them.”
Aliyah laughed. “We all thought we loved cats, but you and Mohab put us to shame. Last time I saw Mohab he said you’ll adopt dozens more as soon as you settle your schedules and make the citadel your base, because cats hate traveling.”
Every word fell on her like a blow so that she almost gasped in relief when Aliyah’s phone rang.
Thankful for the respite, she contemplated her sister-in-law. Aliyah was her very antithesis, glowing with health and happiness, her world built on the unshakable foundation of Kamal’s love and of her certain future with him. While she... She’d been counting down the days she had left with Mohab and was withering inside. She’d taken to putting on makeup to prevent outward signs from showing.
Watching Aliyah melt with love as she talked to Kamal, she couldn’t be happier for them, but at the same time, it made her own despondence deepen until it suffocated her.
With a last intimate whisper, Aliyah ended the call. “Kamal sends hugs and kisses. But insisted I tell you that your husband conned him.”
Alarm burst inside her chest.
Aliyah went on. “He says Mohab said he doesn’t know the first thing about dealing with the executive realities of running a kingdom, especially one that is growing and changing as much and as fast as Jareer. He now believes Mohab’s protestations were just total pretense so he’d get him involved—not because he needs his help, but to get on his good side, so he’d help him have you, and now continues to rely on his input for your sake, too.”
“I don’t believe this is true....”
Aliyah waved her hand, her smile widening. “Kamal said you’d think that, but he knows a man who’d do anything for his woman when he sees one. And take it from me, that ‘twin’ of yours has...extensive experience and insight in that arena.”
Any other woman would have considered this everything worth living for. Knowing the man she loved with all her being felt the same. But having someone corroborate the depth of Mohab’s involvement, which she’d been becoming more certain of with each passing minute, only sank her deeper into despair.
“Kamal would have respected the hell out of Mohab for achieving what no one believed could be done around here, let alone in this time frame. But the fact that he has you at the top of his priorities makes Kamal feel progressively more smug that he pegged Mohab right from the first meeting, when he came proposing peace between our kingdoms...and offering it all as your mahr.”
Time did keep proving that she and Kamal were identical. For it had substantiated that she’d pegged Mohab right, too, from that first second she’d laid eyes on him. That he was everything she would ever want in a man, everything she could—and did—love, respect and admire. And that everything that happened to make her believe otherwise had been just tragic mistakes and misunderstandings.
Contrary to what she’d tried to convince herself of in the years of alienation, that Mohab was unfeeling by necessity, he actually turned off his feelings on demand only in his work. In his personal life, with her, she’d never known anyone who was more in touch with his emotions and so generous with demonstrating them. And it had been killing her to realize how she’d misjudged him, what she’d done to him. What she’d have to do still.
Time had also proved she was a superlative actress. Not even Mohab, Kamal and now Aliyah, the people who loved her most, suspected there was a thing wrong with her.
Demonstrating her obliviousness, Aliyah went on, “I think you’re making one hell of a queen, too. It’s like you’re made to rule this specific place beside your man, your every skill and quality just what it needs. I’m so impressed by the originality of your social and educational projects and the effects they’re already having. I need you to teach me how to translate that to Judar.”
And she could take no more. “Please, Aliyah, stop.”
The pain in her voice had her sister-in-law sitting up in alarm. “What’s wrong, Jala?”
Everything, she wanted to scream.
Up until Aliyah’s visit today, she’d been escaping making a decision, thinking she could go on for a while more, maybe another month, maybe another six.
But after what Aliyah had told her earlier, so offhandedly, believing it would be nothing to concern her, she’d been feeling her world had already ended.
She swallowed past the burning coal that used to be her larynx. “I want to tell you something, Aliyah. And I need you to make Kamal understand that it is in no way Mohab’s fault....”
* * *
“How are my darlings today?”
Mohab walked into their bedroom, taking off the band that held his hair in that severe ponytail, his smile flooding the soothingly lit chamber.
By the time he reached the bed where Jala was sitting with the four cats arranged all around her, he’d stripped off his jacket and shirt. Then he threw himself down beside her, grinning, spreading himself for his cats to climb all over him, stroking and kissing them. After a purring storm interlude, he turned his focus to her.